I am an entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker, mentor, and philanthropist with a focus on helping others to excel in their entrepreneurial ventures. I am the founder and Managing Partner of REES Capital, a mentor capital and angel investment firm. Prior to this I was the founder and CEO of MediConnect Global, Inc. With the help of a great team, I led a worldwide workforce of over 1,000 employees and we achieved over 1,500 percent revenue growth, leading the company to be acquired for $377 million in 2012. To give back, I founded the IPOP Foundation, a charity focused on educating entrepreneurs. Over two years ago I began writing a daily blog to my employees. I am continuing that blog as an Angel Investor to share the life lessons I continue to learn along my life’s journey.

"Don't Hate Me Because I am Beautiful."

I remember well those words spoken in a Pantene shampoo commercial back in the 1980’s. The attractive woman with the fabulous hair looked right into the camera and made the plea “Don’t hate me because I am beautiful.” That phrase became front and center once again earlier this year when UK columnist Samantha Brick wrote her article claiming that women hated her because of her beauty.

Seven Deadly Sins - Envy (credit: wikipedia)

The woman in the commercial feared the envy and jealousy of others. Samantha Brick, apparently, feared the same thing. Now whether these two women were, in fact, envied by others is not important to the point I want to make. What is important is the fact that when other people are genuinely jealous or envious of another, it leads them to believe that they must tear that person down in order for them to personally get ahead, and that is certainly something to be feared; especially in the workplace.

As a CEO I saw it time and time again: An employee would start to compare themselves to a coworker. First they would try to emulate the coworker, copying the traits they admired most. When it stopped at that it would serve as a positive motivator for improved behavior and end in a positive result. Unfortunately it didn’t always stop there. Often times the person trying to emulate their coworker began to see everything as a competition. They began to see the situation as “one of us will win and one of us must lose”. Comparing themselves in this way often led them to uncut their coworker in order to ensure that they could come out victorious. Gossiping and backbiting were often tools used in the process to ensure their outcome of being crowned the “winner”.

Allowing this type of behavior in any organization is detrimental to the culture. When employees see that this behavior is accepted, or even worse, rewarded, they will ultimately make a choice to either join in with the cutthroat competition or they will walk away from their job. Either way, the company ends up as the ultimate loser. The negative culture grows larger and becomes more embedded in the organization, and the company’s reputation will spread far beyond itself, ensuring that good people will steer clear of coming on board.

How can this type of behavior be kept from infesting a company? It must start at the top. Leadership must be willing to adopt the principle that there will be no comparing or unhealthy competing against one another. Leadership must be willing to uphold this principle as well, making it possible for all the leaders to succeed together. It can’t be me against you, where one must win and one must lose. It must be an attitude of “we are in this together, and we succeed or fail together”. When leadership sets the example from the top, the employees will recognize this and follow it. If and when a bad apple gets into the bunch, leadership must be committed to removing them from the organization swiftly and without fail, sending the message that the company will not allow a cancer to grow. If the bad apple were to be tolerated or excused by leadership the entire culture would begin to crumble because employees would stop trusting them. Having leadership walk the talk is critical to protecting the company’s culture.

All of us are susceptible to becoming the bad apple if we are not careful. We live in a world where we are constantly tempted to compare ourselves to others. We live in a world where we are constantly hearing that we need to be better, smarter, wealthier, thinner, and more attractive. There is nothing wrong with striving to be the best we can be, however, there is everything wrong with holding ourselves in comparison to anyone else. The moment we stop competing with our own personal best and we start competing with someone else, we allow ourselves to get sucked into the “hating someone because they are beautiful” syndrome. We become that person who has to see and point out the negative in someone else in order to let ourselves come out ahead, because we have made it a situation where only one can win and one must lose. On the contrary, if we keep ourselves focused on becoming the best we can be, continuously competing with our own personal best, then no one else has to lose for us to come out ahead. Our focus becomes a positive one where we can be happy for other people in their own success without feeling like we are losing part of ourselves in the process. When we spend our days trying to improve our own abilities we earn our success the right way, and we get the satisfaction of knowing that we didn’t have to tear anyone else down to get ahead. We can be beautiful ourselves while appreciating the beauty in everyone around us as well, and that my friend, is a beautiful thing.

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Perhaps this behavior may be nurtured in college which may shape the “competitive work behavior” or jealousy. Although studies do indicate that early childhood behavior and various other variables influence their adult behavior that is another issue.

Nurturing competitive behavior in college (i.e. test scores, admission requirements, and grades) really takes a toll on the students health and even their mental state. An interesting statement you wrote:

“What is important is the fact that when other people are genuinely jealous or envious of another, it leads them to believe that they must tear that person down in order for them to personally get ahead, and that is certainly something to be feared; especially in the workplace. ”

I have witnessed this behavior in college, especially within student social groups. Sometimes I think people grow tired of working with jealous/envious peers or colleagues because it can grow tiring, especially to those who do not organize their day around stepping on others to get to the top.

Try to think about how many successful groups are assigned in a college classroom for example. If you have 4 people, it is possible person #1 doesn’t care (but will pull through last minute), person #2 dominates entire group, person #3 is agreeable and completes work regardless, and person #4 may not show up when presentation day comes.

Kimberely, well said, yet on the other hand one could also say that is was nature with a predisposition from an individuals DNA. Although, when it comes to nature versus nurture I will always agree with nurturing as with a business (or children) without nurturing in a positive fashion an organization is doomed to failure as indicative through lost productivity, quality, and safety. Great point Kimberely.

Another Great Article, Amy!! Organizational Development is truly only changed (for good or bad) for the CEO down, as this lays the foundation for the businesses culture. This type culture of has been credited to Deming as a Total Quality Management System (TQM) which affects the productive, quality, and safety of the organization in equal shares so as an example, when quality fails so does safety and productivity. I personally, consult and emulate these examples every day when consulting with organizations. Therefore, when an employee is caught up in a struggle to compete in a negative light with other coworkers versus their competitors, it is thus the competitors winning the business war and the loss of ROI for investors.

This is a well chosen topic and appropriate for the years coming ahead from 2013.

The claims of leadership setting an example are worth it, however, the impact of society, media and others who we hang around and seek counsel is far more more influential than the leadership in the company.

The leadership has shifted drastically from the good old days of a true mission and vision to that of a profitable and bottom+to line benefits. All other values are out of the window. Companies making billions of dollars today settle the issues and claims by agreeing to pay the fees and fines but not agreeing to having committed the crime or whatever that is against the law.

With that scenario of government wanting to just collect the money but not get the corporations to accept their mistake in writing is also driving the leadership more toward the profit aspects. Second, non-profit organizations are also violating the code of ethics and abusing the profit they make while being caught in the act of violation.

Our opportunities are much more rewarding when we take the steps at home starting with ourselves and then educating our children with examples from our own leadership. For example how do we truly avoid discriminating someone based on physical appearance? How do we use the term beautiful without even giving away that there is a word called “ugly?” How do we reward or recognize or commend a person for their inner beauty rather than outer appearance?

So long as there is a market for good looks, physical appearance, environment where men or women being reactive to physical appearance and other features of women, the battle has to be fought at home in getting the next generation to overcome such fetishes.

Our conversation on a daily basis doesn’t go without a comparison of someone’s physical appearance that immediately creates the discrimination. Advertisements that bombard us with products and services that promote the physical appearance without focusing on inner beauty and other things that everyone can achieve regardless of physical traits. So, the battle to demonstrate individual and distributed leadership by us outside the corporate environment is the first place to begin.

We are all born into this habit at our homes and it is not caused by corporations as corporations are run by people with the values they bring to the table from their own homes and associated colleagues.

Running a corporation with your own leadership and succeeding is a much better option than expecting to have the corporate initiate such a leadership especially when you have to depend on your boss or sue them to change their ways. This approach of trying to get corporations alone to change has a poor sustainability in the long run.

If lawsuits were completely absent, would human beings behave in a civic manner? So when laws are created to avoid financial losses, the leadership is not going to happen on a sustained basis and will be more of a showcase kind of trying to be politically right.

Our approach has to be integrated in many ways in addition to the change we wish for corporate leaders to initiate.

I agree with the fact that the life lessons are best learned when they start at home. I believe it makes a tremendous difference when children are taught these principles at a young age and they can then carry them into the workforce. Your comments are certainly thought provoking. Thank you for taking the time to share.

Eloquently spoken and I wish that nurturing at home was happening with every child whereas by the time the entered the workforce litigation would not be such a necessity to change behavior. Corporate America needs to instill a culture of change to address these points which will ultimately affect their return on investment. However, I don’t see the trend going away as professional Risk Manager yet, I would give up my profession in a New York minute as it is truly most disturbing to me as a nurturing Father, for our children’s sake.

Amy, great job on invoking change in our culture one article at a time for it is with small things as such that creates these discussions within our society. Thank you, sincerely, for making a difference!!

Leadership is responsible and accountable to ensure equal opportunities in the workplace, to provide a positive environment and to encourage a win-win philosophy. Leaders and/or managers that are biased because let’s say fraternization undertake the risk of failure by letting the bad apple perish the rest. People are the most valuable asset of a company but they sure can be the most difficult to manage. Thanks for a very explanatory article!